much of the arms and money and some personnel are coming from outside from iran on -- and hezbollah on one side and from saudi arabia, qatar and other states on the other. if there's any hope of diffusing the conflict, one way is going to have to deal with the issues of iranian support. iran is deeply concerned because syria is the major foothold in the arab world. there's a long standing syria through the decline or democrat myself of the assad regime, which i think is inevitable, will be a serious blow to iran. >> so if you have washington, sir, on one side of the scale and tehran on the other, who does baghdad more closely align with? >> well, our hope is, of course, that it will be a truly democratic regime which will be primarily loyal to the interests of the people in iraq and that their views will be consistent with others in supporting and strengthening democratic institutions. but as with many of the other countries in the middle east, there are a whole series of conflicting interests there and it will play out over a long period of time. but our interest is in democratic inst